why would they NOT just gather up those IP addresses and have the ISPs send warning letters for what will surely be a fairly small "processing fee" (what does it cost to send a letter?).

I'd expect ISPs to be charging $100-$250 as a reasonable attempt at recouping costs. It's not just the per-letter time (which is 5-10 minutes per, at a minimum, and would be cheap at $100/hour), but also the costs of the tracking system for customers who've been sent previous letters, the input from legal on the wording of the letters, sign-off from executives on the third stage action, etc etc. It's not cheap.

The biggest problem I have with what the rights-holders want from ISPs is that they want the ISPs to wear all of the costs even though they get no financial benefit. In most other industries, you don't get to make other people do your dirty work at their cost.

The thing that really fucks me off about this thing is, as others have said, the urgency. National just cannot help themselves - you know it's bad when even DPF complains about how much they've abused urgency in just one term!Two years in National had already passed more legislation under urgency than Labour did in three whole terms. I'm a little confused as to just who is the nanny state government that knows better than the electorate.

re these two clowns list MPs or did someone actually tick a box and vote for them!?!?

People ticked a box to vote for list MPs - it's the one that says "National" or "Labour" by it. If you don't like the people on the list, don't vote for the party in question. If you agree with a party but think their list could do with a tweak, join the party (assuming it's one that actually gives a fuck what rank and file members think).

The best I can point to is Sir Cyril Newall (discussed at page 718 of Philip Joseph's seminal text Constitutional and Administrative Law in New Zealand (2nd ed.):

Sir Cyril, Governor-General from 1941-1946, delayed signing a government recommendation to commute sentences of flogging, insisting on legislation (I think abolishing it, or partly abolishing it) instead. Apparently he also demurred about signing to authorise a courts martial of soldiers sent back from Africa, as they would have faced the death penalty if convicted. Joseph says "on both these occasions, it is not known whether the Governor General actually refused his signature or whether the Government, on reconsideration, withdrew its advice."

In the mid-1990s NAT became a popular tool for alleviating the consequences of IPv4 address exhaustion.[citation needed] It has become a standard, indispensable feature in routers for home and small-office Internet connections. Most systems using NAT do so in order to enable multiple hosts on a private network to access the Internet using a single public IP address

With the lack of available IPV4 addresses, more and more ISPs will be utilising NAT to share fewer IPs with more customers. It is happening already.

How will it be possible to link the infringement notices with specific users?

NZFACT welcomes the enactment of the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill following its second and third reading in Parliament last night. The bill will now go into effect on September 1, 2011.

“We commend the Government and the Legislature for honouring their commitment to promoting and protecting the continued growth of New Zealand’s creative industries,” said NZFACT executive director Tony Eaton.

“The legislation enacted today will prove invaluable to our efforts to educate consumers about the value of intellectual property while at the same time deterring copyright infringement. We now look forward to its full implementation and to working with all sectors of the industry to make that happen.

The legislation, which was introduced on February 23, 2010 codifies the steps that internet service providers must take in cooperation with rights owners to address peer-to-peer copyright infringement occurring over their networks. Those steps include forwarding notices of infringements generated by rights owners to those customers and maintaining records of such activity. The legislation also provides for damage awards by the Copyright Tribunal and the possibility of account suspension under certain circumstances.

“On behalf of New Zealand’s film community, I applaud Minister Simon Power and his colleagues in government for their ongoing support, and for protecting our collective investment in the industry, which provides 22,000 jobs and contributes more than $2.5 billion to the country’s economy.” said New Zealand Film Commission Chief Executive Officer Graeme Mason.

“On a per capita basis, New Zealand has one of the highest rates of peer-to-peer infringement in the world. I’m pleased that New Zealand will now have some of the strongest legislative provisions in the world to help address that” said noted actor Temuera Morrison

Yes, but did the Statute of Westminster (adopted 1947) not make a difference to the role of the G-G? Colonial governors (as the representative of the imperial government) did have substantive powers (and still do in places like Gibraltar). It's reasonable that a G-G of not-quite-independent NZ could have also felt they had wider powers that a modern figure. (Moreover, they were a British appointment).

If a user's coming out of a shared IP address (such as NAT), then that does create an interesting issue.

If a complainer knows their IP and outbound port and the NAT server has adequate logs, then it would be possible to trace the user. But the legislation is silent about logging and retaining this data - it only requires the user / IP mapping. So an ISP could, I think, comply by responding that an IP was in use by any of a whole tranche of users.

That's a bit of a fail, isn't it?

[Edit to the edit]

But a NAT server will screw up most forms of true peer-peer filesharing anyway (because it's a one-way, outbound street).

File sharing services in the cloud, maybe (these do have the advantage of actually working and are thus preferred over BitTorrent and the like).

If a complainer knows their IP and outbound port and the NAT server has adequate logs, then it would be possible to trace the user. But the legislation is silent about logging and retaining this data – it only requires the user / IP mapping. So an ISP could, I think, comply by responding that an IP was in use by any of a whole tranche of users.

That’s a bit of a fail, isn’t it?

Actually, another one occurs. Lots of people now live in big Auckland CBD apartment buildings which provide internet service at a flat fee along with power, etc. I presume they're using NAT. In theory the landlord companies are ISPs. In practice ... good luck with that.